Entanglement

Cigarette in hand, he moved gracefully from where he was standing, crossing the dimly lit room, the sun passing brightly through the dirty glass of the window panes onto the floor. He grabbed the chair, one of the two pieces of furniture in the clean simple room, set it before the window, grating across the unvarnished wood floor. He sat ungracefully, as a man tired from his labors would, carelessly, wantonly, defeatedly, and loosened his elegant cravat. He turned briefly to the other piece of furniture, a huge table littered with his papers and books, found the empty ashtray, and flicked the end off his cigarette, turned back to the view out the window, and sighed, throwing his wig onto the mantle, nearly missing and tossing it into the fire.

This is yet another day, much like yesterday, certainly one expects much the same as tomorrow will be. In one critical way it was different, because today he had ended a man's life by exposing him for the fraud that he was. He took no pleasure in it, and was weary of the work it had taken. Three relentless years. Three years of hiding, constant threat of danger, death even. In fact, Mathau had died because of this effort. It became a task he could not put aside, for its subject was so insipid that he was compelled to put an end to the charades just to embarass the man out of everyone's misery. This would make a lot of people angry, he knew that. He had already angered many, and there were some who would no longer acknowledge him for fear of association. He also knew there were so many who feared the man, and would take great pleasure in his collapse, for they too knew the truth but lacked either the courage or the means to illuminate him. He knew the danger would only worsen, given the circumstances, and that while tomorrow was certain the day after not so much.

He took a puff from his cigarette, and continued his purposeless gaze through the window into the busy street below. He could hear the streetcar, the honk of an automobile among the clomping leathery smell of the horses in front of their carriages. From this fifth story room he could see the factory near the city center, and imagined he could see the deepening layers of soot from the thick coal smoke that emanated from its horrific stacks. The factory made shoes, he thought. The steeple of the cathedral ironically posed across the river from the factory made him smile. It would all fall down. He stroked his small, closely cropped beard, flicked his cigarette again, and sighed wearily, rubbing his eyes.

The loud, forceful knock on the door startled him and he dropped his glasses as he turned with a sense of urgency at its unexpected demand.